Last Saturday morning I was thinking about the little oil pastel landscapes that are part of this year’s hundred-day creative journey. I was marveling at how these sunrise and sunsets have continued to flow across the paper. And I remembered what a terrific practice it is to do a creative form so repetitively, daily, over so many weeks in a row.
I notice how from day to day I am able to see the details in the photos I’ve taken and am using as inspiration for the paintings. The ways in which my fingers are able to add those details with greater truth. By “truth” I do not mean precision or accuracy, as in photographic realism. I mean the ability of the character of that soulful landscape to emerge with greater clarity across the art card.
I suppose this is also true of my book manuscript project; the more I write to convey the details and depth of my various relationships with the more-than-humans in my community, the more clearly they show themselves, nuance and all, on the written page.
When I started in January, I thought I was doing #The100DayProject again this year to make progress on my book manuscript and to create art pages for themed landscape books. And these might even be the outcomes that occur.
But more importantly for my creative and spiritual life, I’m learning anew the value of:
Creative practice as deepening of relationship with the natural world
Creative practice as enhancer of vision (like creative eyeglasses for the soul?)
Creative practice as harbinger of inner - and outer - change
Creative practice as flow and enjoyment (read: the end of striving!)
Creative practice as connection with the world
Creative practice for its own sake
May we create on!
